We stopped in Otranto first and managed to get a parking ticket. For anyone who doesn't know this makes our 6th ticket this year- awesome... We had the rental company take care of it with our money.
We walked around and had lunch in Otranto and then made our way further south. We drove through a lot of cities, my favorite was Saint Cesarea. So gorgeous!
We stopped in some small town- if you could even it call it that, and watched men catch fish for their restaurant.
We stopped in Leuca, the last city in the heel and got photos. We then made our way up through the center of the heel.
We spent probably about 30 minutes trying to navigate our way back in to Old Lecce. It's the original center of the town so it has a wall around it. There are a lot of one ways into Old Lecce and inside Old Lecce. Not to mention narrow streets that you can't even get through. We had to go back out into New Lecce and enter from another direction.
We headed back to the piazza for dinner and as we were exiting we heard bells, chanting, and saw several hundreds of people. As we grew closer to watch we saw many nuns, monks, priests, etc. There was a many holding giant speakers that were blasting something in Italian and people would chant back in Italian. I started to realize this was a Catholic procession. Soon an elaborate canopy held by 4 men came up. Underneath was a cardinal or a bishop, someone important like that with a big hat, he was holding a staff with the Eucharist in it. As he passed everyone was crossing themselves. After about 5 minutes all of the clergy passed and on came the followers. They were all singing and chanting and it was very Catholic. I found out later it was the city's Patron Saint and that was the celebration or procession.
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